UNITED NATIONS, September 27 (RIA Novosti) - The UN Security Council could vote as early as late Friday on a draft resolution to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons, Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said.
The Russian diplomat said the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) must first approve its roadmap for the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons because it will be included in the UN resolution.
The Hague-based body will be in charge of securing and destroying the Syrian stockpiles of chemical weapons in line with the US-Russian plan, which was hammered out between the two sides in Geneva earlier this month.
“We are hoping that, according to the procedure, the OPCW executive council will be able to make the decision within 24 hours,” Churkin told reporters after a brief meeting of the Security Council to discuss the draft of the UN resolution on Syria late on Thursday.
“If it happens in The Hague tomorrow night, that is, when it is 3 or 4 p.m. here in New York, we will be able to vote [on the UN resolution] at 8 p.m.," Churkin said.
Russia and the United States announced on Thursday that they have agreed on a draft UN Security Council resolution that will not allow military action to enforce Syria’s compliance with a US-Russian plan to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons.
The document was submitted to other Security Council members for discussion, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in New York.
